Influence of chemotherapy on nitric oxide synthase, indole-amine-2,3-dioxygenase and CD124 expression in granulocytes and monocytes of non-small cell lung cancer.

There is no specific marker to evaluate the immuno-suppressive status of cancer patients. Several markers, such as CD124, latency-associated peptide (LAP), arginase I, indole-amine-2,3-dioxygenase (IDO) and inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS), are known to be associated with immune suppression. However, there is little research regarding the change in these parameters after chemotherapy. The present study enrolled 23 chemo-naïve non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients and 19 healthy donors. From the 23 NSCLC patients, 11 post-chemotherapy samples were collected. Surface and functional markers were analyzed by flow-cytometry. The mean fluorescence intensities (MFI) of iNOS were higher and the MFI of LAP were lower in NSCLC patient than in healthy donors (P < 0.05). In a comparison of pre-chemotherapy and post-chemotherapy groups with NSCLC, the MFI of iNOS on granulocytes and monocytes and IDO on monocytes were significantly lower in the post-chemotherapy group than in the pre-chemotherapy group (P < 0.05). In a serial analysis with 10 patients who had paired samples and who showed clinical benefits from chemotherapy, the MFI of iNOS for both cell types, and of IDO and CD124 for monocytes decreased significantly after chemotherapy, compared with those before chemotherapy (iNOS, 4.79 ± 1.75 vs 2.83 ± 0.77, P = 0.005, for granulocytes and 6.15 ± 2.94 vs 2.76 ± 1.05, P = 0.005 for monocytes; IDO, 6.81 ± 3.43 vs 4.64 ± 1.55, P = 0.012 for monocytes; CD124, 2.31 ± 0.39 vs 1.94 ± 0.43, P = 0.008 for monocytes). The changes in arginase I and LAP expression were not significant. The changes in iNOS, IDO and CD124 expression were significant after chemotherapy in NSCLC. Further evaluation of the possibility of immune status monitoring using these parameters is needed.